Sholom Wasser flicked the light switch, but nothing happened. He tried the other switches, and suddenly, all the lights and several fans in the shul basement came to life. Rabbi Wasser frowned, then shrugged and turned around and smiled at his audience.

“Okay, too much light isn’t a bad thing,” he said, pulling the shtender toward the middle of the room. Taped cardboard boxes lined both walls, the shelves sagging under the weight of rows of old seforim, one volume of Encyclopedia Britannica (Oyster to Pacific) mixed in with a faded brown Shas. Curiously, there was also a brass elephant next to a set of Teshuvos Rabi Akiva Eiger.

The shtender was missing part of its leg, and it tilted comically to the side. A heavyset bochur whose hat seemed glued to his head stood up with a flourish and slid his shoe under the faulty leg, allowing the shtender to stand properly. Then he hopped back to his seat, his striped sock visible to the bochurim seated around the gray folding table.

Dovi Korman giggled and looked over to Boruch Zeldman. “What’s up with Mr. Socks over there?”

The bochur seemed to hear, and he grinned at them. “Look, the Rosh Yeshivah needs a normal shtender, that’s what we’re for.”

Rabbi Wasser had been letting the boys schmooze, but now he tapped the shtender lightly. “Ah, very good, very good, but let me tell you why we’re takeh here.” He was clearly pleased with this opening and he repeated it. “Noach said a svara about why we’re here, but I think I’ll say a bit differently.”

He quoted a pasuk and said a vort from Reb Yerucham, and Dovi Korman found his mind wandering. The shul basement looked like the sort of place that didn’t get many visitors; maybe once or twice a year someone came down to find an old paper or sefer, and the rav or gabbai probably did a very quick job at bedikas chometz. This place, Dovi thought, is shpitz Rabbi Wasser. Then he had another thought: shpitz Rabbi Wasser is a good thing.

“Okay, so that’s the hakdamah,” said Rabbi Wasser, “now let’s talk l’maiseh. The Ribbono shel Olam led me to this juncture in my life, where the yeshivah where I worked for the last few years isn’t nogei’a anymore, and a choshuve Yid encouraged me to try to open a new one. It wasn’t a new thought to me. I’d been davening for the chance for a while, and I feel like a doorway opened. I spent the last few weeks preparing a list of the type of bochurim I would want to build with, to start a new yeshivah with, and you, rabboisai, are my first choices. Each and every one of you. I want to invite you to join me on Rosh Chodesh Elul.”

“Psshhhh… first choices,” said the boy with one shoe on and one shoe off, and Rabbi Wasser smiled at him indulgently.

“Noiach, Noiach, you know it’s true.”

“Noiach built a teivah, a teivah,” sang a thin redhead in trendy glasses behind Dovi.

He was barely audible, but somehow Rabbi Wasser heard him. He leaned over the shtender. “It looks like you didn’t all have a chance to meet each other. How about everyone here takes a moment and says their name?”

There was an awkward silence and Rabbi Wasser laughed out loud.

(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 789)